German indoor ski centre runs on solar, and off grid

How do you power one of Europe’s largest indoor skiing halls? With the heat of the sun, of course. In fact, the idea to run Germany’s alpincenter – which houses 30,000m² of ski slopes – on solar power has proved to be somewhat of a win-win for the building’s owners, the Dutch Van der Valk Group.

Not only does the 3.6MW Canadian Solar rooftop PV array have the ability to operate the facility year-round – completely independent of the grid and without the need for subsidies – but the shadow it casts on the roof drastically reduces the load on the centre’s cooling technology (which needs to keep the indoor temperature at -1 degree Celsius year-round) and, in turn, reduces the amount of power consumed.

“It is a particular proof of photovoltaic efficiency that a winter sports center – which needs great amounts of energy – uses solar power,” Canadian Solar CEO and chairman Dr Shawn Qu said in a company statement about the project.

And for a project like this, reliability is rather important. “Performance losses are not tolerable,” said Dr Christian Metje, whose Hamburg-based consulting group was hired to deliver an energy solution for the alpincentre that would completely cover its demand using self-generated power.

“Projects like the alpincenter Hamburg-Wittenburg are the future of solar energy,” Metje said: “PV systems that cover the facility’s complete energy demand and that do not depend on public subsidies.”